Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-05-06-Speech-4-009"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20100506.3.4-009"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
"−
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me first of all thank you for doing me the honour of inviting me to speak in plenary. This is the continuation of a tradition begun a few years ago.
The third area that we were asked to prioritise is the fight against climate change. Last year, we provided close to EUR 17 billion in funding for projects that contribute directly to reducing the volume of greenhouse gas emissions.
I think I can say that in 2009 we achieved what was expected of us; in other words, we made our contribution to the European Economic Recovery Plan.
Of course, we need to continue along these lines, and I would like very briefly to mention the three great challenges that we face in the coming months and years.
The first, as your rapporteur quite rightly stressed, is to continue to contribute to the European Union’s priorities. That means, therefore, that we, as the EIB, must make our contribution to the implementation of the Europe 2020 Strategy. As you know, the Commission has launched this new strategy, which is currently under discussion with the Council and Parliament. The EIB is ready to make its contribution, in particular using innovative financial instruments that would allow us to increase the leverage of some funds from the European budget. These are, therefore, joint instruments between the Commission and the Bank that we would like to put into action.
The second major challenge that we face is the renewal of the EIB’s external mandates. We will have the opportunity to discuss this with Parliament. The Commission has just presented a proposal that is fully in line with the report by a committee of wise men chaired by Mr Camdessus. The key element of this proposal is to make the system even more effective. As you know, we benefit from a European Union guarantee for operations that are included in its external mandates. The aim, therefore, is to use them as best we can, and the Commission proposes a simplification, a harmonisation of our external mandates. The Commission also proposes that EUR 2 billion that was set aside be allocated to projects contributing to the fight against climate change.
That leads me to the third challenge that I would like to underline: the need for the European Investment Bank, along with other institutions, to make its contribution, in particular, to fulfilling the commitment made by the European Union in Copenhagen. As you know, the European Union made some major commitments to support what we call fast track financing. In this context we think that the EIB, which has developed unquestionable expertise in these matters, can make an important contribution. That is why we proposed to work with other national financial institutions to set up a network, a European platform that could coordinate and, therefore, optimise the funding of projects in developing countries. The French Development Agency and the German KfW have already shown interest in this initiative, and I hope that, together with the Commission, we will be able to help finalise this instrument in the coming weeks.
Those, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, are the three major challenges for the months and years ahead that I wanted to draw your attention to.
I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Deutsch, for the fine quality of his report.
In particular, I appreciated the fact that Mr Deutsch, as well as other members of the committee, Mr Berman and Mr Kalfin, made the effort to come to the European Investment Bank to ask some very specific questions. I welcome this excellent cooperation with Parliament.
In reality, the European Investment Bank is the only international financial institution that answers voluntarily and that is accountable to a parliamentary institution. I believe it is an excellent thing: in my opinion, strengthening the dialogue with the European Parliament is in fact absolutely essential to allow us to fulfil our role, our specific mission, which is to be a bank, but not an ordinary bank, serving the policies of the European Union.
As Mr Deutsch has already pointed out, this is what we have been trying hard to do in response to the crisis.
As of September 2008, after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Ecofin Council asked us to increase the volume of our loans for the real economy. We set to work, acting on this order from the Council, and I think I can say that we have in fact fulfilled our commitments, since in 2009 the volume of our loans went from 58 billion to 79 billion, that is, an increase of 37% of the volume of our loans in the European Union.
This increase mainly concerned the three sectors that the Council and Parliament had told us were priorities.
The first area was to make a special effort for the countries and the regions that were most severely affected by the crisis. This increase largely concerns what we call the convergence regions and especially certain countries that experienced particular difficulties in 2009. Thus we have never before lent so much to countries such as Hungary, Lithuania and Romania. Furthermore, this also explains why this year we are going to make a special effort for Greece: I was in Athens last week and, with the Greek Government, we agreed that we would increase considerably the volume of our loans in Greece, as a sign of support and a contribution to the general effort to get the Greek economy back on its feet.
The second area that was prioritised is support for small and medium-sized enterprises: we increased our loans to the banks so that they continue to lend to small and medium-sized enterprises, with a new product that will allow us to have better control over the actual use of the funds that we lend. Last year we lent more than EUR 12 billion to the banks for small and medium-sized enterprises."@en1
|
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples